Alternative Medicine
by Pearl Gatsby
Summary: "All I wanted to say," he said gently, breaking the eye contact to look somewhere in the room behind her, "is that—if we're neither of us taking our potions, maybe we don't have to sneak around with it anymore." Post-traumatic Hermione and Draco share a common room at Hogwarts. What could go wrong? 8th-year fic. EWE.
1. Chapter 1

**It's been a loooong time since I've written a fic, and even longer since I've published one—this will come in short bites, but it's finished, so never fear.**

 **Thanks to everyone out there writing Dramione fics; you sustained me through a really exhausting summer and renewed my love for fanfiction.**

 **Disclaimer: I totally don't own Harry Potter.**

 **Thanks for reading!**

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" _Granger_."

When Draco entered their shared common room, Hermione jumped, nearly spilling the jug she was pouring out of. She looked sharply in his direction and pulled the jug and her glass toward her body and out of his view. It felt like an awkward move, and she was sure it was by his reaction.

"What do you have there?" Draco raised an eyebrow. It was the least neutral she'd seen his face in their entire first month as prefects. Also the most words she'd heard out of him at one time.

"It's my business," she bristled, carrying the empty jug and glass off to her room. She'd dispose of the jug later, wash the glass out with a spell. She should've known better to think she could relax in the common room during daylight hours, to rely on what seemed to be Draco's daily schedule. She'd have to be more careful.

 **.**

By 2 a.m. Hermione had determined that it was safe to go back into the common room. She crept down her stairs and settled onto the long couch, not bothering to light a lamp or even her wand. It was quickly becoming her new nightly routine, now that she'd grown bored of her room.

If she slept nowadays, it was some afternoons. Some morning hours. But even though sleep was supposed to restore her body, all it did was break her. She'd cast a silencing charm on her room to keep Draco or anyone else from hearing her screams. Some days she'd return to her bedroom shaking; they'd done an exceptional job renovating the parts of the castle where they'd had the final battle, to the point that those staircases, those halls, were unrecognizable—and yet now and then she'd be hit with the sensation, descending a staircase or moving through a doorway, that she'd been there before, that she'd watched someone die, that she'd only slightly dodged the green bolt of another killing curse.

She'd run out of homework already, or everything she knew was assigned. She'd gotten tired of reading when her mind wouldn't focus, when she didn't _have to_ focus. She'd thought that throwing herself back at her schoolwork full-force would be the solution to this, but in the month she'd been back at Hogwarts she hadn't really felt much better.

The other eighth-years were the same way—the ones she saw, anyway. Someone with knowledge of muggle psychiatric medicine had started a group, open to anyone who fought in the War, for just spending time together in the presence of others who understood. She'd been invited a few times, reassured that she was always welcome. She'd promised to consider it, but unless it was meeting at 2 a.m. she didn't want to go.

Hermione slipped down the couch, let one arm dangle off the edge, but pulled it back up, quickly. Just the small gesture reminded her of so many nights of sleeping in uncomfortable places, reaching for Ron for comfort—or Harry when Ron had taken off.

Ron taking off. That seemed to be a theme.

She wrapped her arms around her chest even though she wasn't cold and stared at the ceiling she couldn't see. He'd called her too stubborn. He'd given her a maybe. And maybe if "maybe" was all he was good for, that was for the best, but he'd scarcely given himself enough time to work through it. She hadn't either, really. Some of them hadn't even _started_ working through it.

Hermione swung her legs off the couch and stepped out the portrait hole to their common room before she could think anymore. There was no curfew for the 8th years and no restriction on when they could leave castle grounds, so Hermione wasn't afraid of being caught out of bed. The corridors were quiet, and walking them in the semi-dark, lit only occasionally by moonlight, she thought back to all the nights she, Harry, and Ron had been out of bed illegally.

 _We worked so hard to bring peace to the wizarding world_ , she thought, standing at the foot of the Gryffindor stairs. It was as if she was urging herself toward something, but she didn't know what. Her days were dull and her nights sleepless and she felt so disconnected from everything. Harry and Ron seemed to be getting on fine, keeping busy with Auror things. But school had never been so much the challenge for her as the work she did when she wasn't helping them, and now she felt left out.

She climbed the Gryffindor stairs with slow, deliberate steps, imagining the common room as she got closer and closer.

She'd seen Harry and Ron a few weeks ago in the Three Broomsticks—just after school started. She'd given the appearance of being chipper. They'd all had butterbeer, abstaining carefully from anything pumpkin. Harry and Ron had looked great—of course Ron was still kind of awkward, but they were enjoying their new roles, happy that they got to be done with school once and for all. They'd congratulated her on going back for her last year, teased her even—"All the school in the world wouldn't be enough for Hermione!" For all the potions and tablets Hermione knew they had been prescribed daily—all the same ones that she'd been given; they'd gone through a litany of them weeks before—they seemed to be functioning in society just fine.

Hermione stopped on the stairs just out of view of the portrait that led to the common room. She wouldn't be able to get in—she wasn't a Gryffindor anymore and didn't have a password anyway. McGonagall's no-house system for eighth-years worked sometimes—Hermione didn't feel as much school spirit at Quidditch matches now that she didn't have someone she cared about out there, nor did the House Cup mean very much to anymore, so it was a relief to be excused from the expected performance of enthusiasm—but other times it made her bitter. The cherry on top was, of course, being named sole eighth-year prefects with none other than her literal mortal enemy.

McGonagall had sat them down just before the eight-year meeting, a quieter, less fussy affair than the start-of-school banquet all the lower-years attended. (They'd been welcome at the banquet, of course, but just a small handful of people had decided to go.) She'd explained that they were adults now, that this choice was a symbol of unity and moving on for the school. To Hermione's protests she'd answered that Draco had amends to pay, as per the Wizengamot; to Draco's smugness she'd reminded him that he would be sharing a common area with the Brightest Witch of his Era. She requested that the two of them shake hands in her presence and had ushered them off to their quiet dinner with classmates.

Hermione's feet carried her aimlessly up and down the corridors. She found herself heading towards the Potions classroom without even realizing, turning around as soon as she came to and saw where her body, zombie-like, had been taking her. Draco wasn't the only former Death Eater to return to Hogwarts, and while the younger students gave all of them wide berth, the professors and older students very maturely gave off the appearance that nothing was wrong, or out of the ordinary, or particularly surprising about their presence.

As Hermione walked purposefully back up the stairs to her own, new common room, she felt a familiar exhaustion, the one that urged her to sleep in spite of the fear that waited in her dreams. " _Cauldron cakes_ ," she whispered, and the portrait-hole opened for her. She stepped just inside, leaned back against it when it had closed. _Merlin_.

If she would only take the potions, she'd be able to sleep. But the potions also made her dull. They made her feel— _less_ , like her feelings didn't work anymore. Other times they made her feel stupid, like she couldn't make the connections she used to, like she couldn't keep up. She was more about her wits without them—even if it meant she didn't sleep for the trauma of it all.

A few tears came with her exhaustion sometimes, as they did now; she let them fall. She so _loved_ Hogwarts, but lately it seemed that even just one more second in these halls would be all it took to really break her.

Or maybe she'd already been broken—for good.


	2. Chapter 2

**Decided to post two chapters today because I just can't keep this fic to myself. Also (at least in this case) I write pretty short chapters. Enjoy!**

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"Pumpkin juice, Granger?"

That was Draco's opening line—not "hello," not "excuse me for barging in"—not that she really expected niceties from him. She hated that he'd surprised her again, though this time she was just doing homework on the couch, not trying to conceal something like last time. Still, his tone said _trouble_ , and she looked up to see where he'd entered the room.

"What." Her response was icy, which was natural; but some strange part of her took note of Draco's oddly casual attire—a long-sleeved t-shirt and sweatpants instead of his usually impeccable wardrobe. It was just a Thursday, not a weekend—Hermione wondered where he'd been and whether he'd been in class at all.

"I thought about it," Draco said, strolling from the portrait hole toward the overstuffed chair across from her, "and I thought, what would Granger be hiding from me? It wouldn't be alcohol, even if she didn't want to share…" He came to stand behind the chair, made a show of leaning his elbow on the chair and propping his chin up with a hand. "Couldn't be chocolate, since there's no dearth of that in the Great Hall…" He moved to the front of the chair and folded himself into it. "But now pumpkin juice…"

"You're wrong; it was alcohol," Hermione said, her voice stony.

"No, I'm not," Draco sneered at her. "Besides—" he pretended to inspect his fingernails like the asshole he was, "if anyone here's becoming an alcoholic, that'd be me."

Hermione tried unsuccessfully not to act surprised. "Have you—but you don't—"

"Act like it? Smell like it? The one good thing I learned from my father—" he lost interest in his fingernails and met her gaze, wearing that superior look of his—"is a charm to mask the smell, to restore _just enough_ lucidity without losing the buzz."

Hermione stood from the couch and headed for the portrait hole, giving Draco wide berth, but before she could reach the door he was blocking her path. "And where are you going?"

Hermione went to dodge around him. "I'm going to tell Professor McGonagall that you're endangering your own life and the lives of others by mixing prescription potions with alcohol."

Draco caught her arm with his hand, tugging her back in his direction, "Then I'm going to tell her you've been rendering yours ineffective with pumpkin juice—if you've been taking them at all. Granger the war hero who could do no wrong, ignoring the explicit instructions of the Healers at St. Mungo's, all because she thinks that she knows better than everyone else. Not that she'll receive any reprimand, not after—"

"Are you still sore for losing? Is that what this is about?" Hermione hissed at him, stepping forward. She resisted the urge to shove him, keeping in mind that a combination of alcohol and prescription potions could make him violent and unpredictable; and yet her "danger" sense wasn't going off.

Draco tightened his hold on her arm, just slightly—not enough to hurt, but enough to make a point. He raised his other arm and tugged at his sleeve with his teeth, baring suddenly to her the ugly, scarred mess of his left forearm. "Do you think I wanted this? Ever?"

Hermione flinched when she saw it, taking a step back. Draco let her go, but she didn't try to leave, just reached for her own sleeve. Even after hours of treatment, she'd learned there just wasn't enough magic to erase the damage Bellatrix had done. The scars still clearly showed the lines of eight letters—"MUDBLOOD." She glared at Draco, but after just a moment he relented, looking at the arm she was trying to show him.

"Ah," he said softly, reaching out with one hand. When Hermione started to react, he paused, waited for her to calm, and moved his hand forward, finding her own sleeve—pajamas; she hadn't gotten dressed—and pulling it back into place, "Just one of the reasons I drink."

He withdrew his hand and Hermione looked up at him. As she met his gaze she saw his mask slip: for the first time, she saw just how broken he was, too. The worry of his eyebrows, the helplessness barely hidden in his expression, the dark circles under his eyes like a mirror to hers. And for all that had happened between them—all that he'd spent his life standing for, all the times he'd sent her off to corners crying—she couldn't convince herself not to feel sorry for him.

"All I wanted to say," he said gently, breaking the eye contact to look somewhere in the room behind her, "is that—if we're neither of us taking our potions, maybe we don't have to sneak around with it anymore."

A hot blush spread across Hermione's face as she remembered how this had started—his spot-on accusation. They'd been warned that pumpkin juice interfered with the medicinal potions; and the tables in the Great Hall had been charmed not to serve anyone from the War anything with pumpkin in it. But if she was already done with medications anyway, she figured—she might as well have the pumpkin juice she loved so much. "I never said I wasn't taking my—"

"Granger." Draco's old sneer was back. "You never were good at lying."

When Hermione didn't respond, her mouth an "o" of frustration, Draco moved around her, heading for his bedroom, trusting that she wouldn't snitch. She remained there a few more moments, processing the tense and almost weirdly— _tender_ moment. But soon she shook her head and returned to the couch. She was tired. Delirious, maybe. So it made sense she'd misread something. It made sense she'd have too many emotions at once.

 **.**

Just after midnight there was a knock at Hermione's bedroom door. Only one person could logically be on the other side, but for whatever reason her feet carried her to the door and her hand reached for the knob. "Draco," she said warily as she opened the door.

"Granger," he bobbed his head formally. He hadn't changed clothes from earlier in the day, she noticed, but he smelled clean in that soapy way that boys did, like a forest, with some unidentifiable spicy tones. His hair was a little mussed, too, and drying at funny angles.

Hermione felt her cheeks heat up again. The lack of sleep was doing strange things to her, making her attribute an illogical mix of emotions to Draco's sudden appearance at her door.

"Since we've gotten it out in the open, I wanted to say I'm going to sit up in the common room, and since it's your common room too I won't stop you from joining."

"How kind of you," Hermione said flatly.

"Suit yourself—but won't it beat sitting down there alone in the dark?"

Draco was already heading back down the stairs before Hermione realized he'd done it again—completely nailed her on something she thought was her secret. Either she was really slipping—something about the lack of sleep—or—

Hermione shook her head, clenching her teeth. She closed the door behind Draco for a moment, took a few calming breaths, and reached for the book on her bedside table. Then she opened the door again and followed the path he'd taken down to their common room.

 **.**

There were a few things Hermione Granger learned over the next half-month.

She learned that Draco wasn't kidding about the drinking. He'd bring a flask or a goblet down to the common area—day or night—and tap it with his wand to refill it. He made frequent trips out to replenish his supply. He'd fall briefly asleep, sometimes, snoring ungracefully against the side of the chair before snapping back awake. He avoided deep sleep just like she did—not that they discussed it.

They didn't speak most nights, if at all, though once she'd woken to his hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake in her spot on the couch. As she came to she saw her hands were clenched into fists, trembling along with the rest of her; a memory of some horror just at the tip of her memory, out of reach. Even without knowing why she couldn't stop shaking and he'd stood there, not quite facing her, his hand on her shoulder, until the tremors passed.

She learned that Draco was, in fact, quite good at potions, that it was even his hobby. From the look of the stack on their common table, he'd borrowed at least a fifth of the library's holdings on lost potions of the Middle Ages, and she observed him reading them studiously.

That was another thing—she learned that Draco wore glasses, though only sometimes while reading. They were silver-rimmed and delicate, thin and rectangular, kept in a green dragonskin case. _Such a Slytherin_ , she'd thought the first time she noticed him taking them out, recognizing immediately the color scheme. He'd noticed she was watching, raised a single eyebrow at her once the glasses were secured on his nose—she wasn't sure yet what to make of that.

She learned that, oddly, Draco listened to her—selectively. She'd muttered once that it was drafty in this part of the castle, and the next day a blanket that smelled like a forest with certain spicy tones had been waiting for her on the couch, folded neatly on the cushion. She'd complained that she had to remember to buy more pumpkin juice, and the next night he'd produced a bottle for her along with his own recent purchases. But when she'd said firmly to his still form, his eyes rimmed in red and the bags under his eyes even more pronounced, "You're drinking too much," he had simply gathered himself up and marched back to his own bedroom, not to emerge for the rest of the night. Judging by the state he was in when she saw him the next day, he'd redoubled his usual efforts. She thought it was just to piss her off.

Sure, she learned things in her classes. She learned who in their makeshift 8th-year class was hooking up. She learned who was winning the Quidditch matches. But of all the things Hermione Granger learned over half a month of common-room companionship, it was that having someone—literally _anyone_ , as it were—as a regular companion was so much better than going it alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**And now for the chapter that was almost the entire story—except that I had to write in some background first, and by the time I got here I just couldn't make it that easy anymore. Hope you're enjoying the ride!**

 **Also, re: the pumpkin juice in the last chapter—I had this idea that it was like how grapefruit juice can cause problems if you consume it while taking certain medications (either it makes too much of the medicine enter your blood stream or it does the completely opposite thing and blocks too much of it).**

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"You look like hell," Hermione said, having beaten Draco to the common room. He tripped a little on his way down the stairs, and Hermione clutched at the arm of the couch, on edge. She relaxed slightly when he'd made it to the bottom, more fully when he'd maneuvered into the chair. Hermione drained the pumpkin juice from her glass and refilled it, pushing it across the table to him. "Drink something that isn't alcohol."

Draco looked up at her, a shadow of his former self. As it was he reminded her of sixth-year Draco, the year Harry had had them all watching him, convinced that he was doing something wrong—which, of course, he had been. She was pretty sure he wasn't going to class. Some of the other 8th-years had this problem, too—she herself had even asked for a bit of time to rest. It was always granted, quietly.

Draco's face was gaunt. While Hermione had been gradually sleeping more, leaving the common room earlier in the night to try to rest, braving her own dreams—he'd been tearing himself apart.

Hermione got up from the couch. She picked her glass up from the table and held it out in front of him. "You'll take it and you'll drink it," she said. "And then water, and then pepper-up potion—though at this point I think not even that will do much."

"So dishapproving," Draco slurred.

Hermione pushed the glass at him. He took it and drank, one small sip.

"All," she reminded him.

Draco drank the juice. Hermione refilled the glass with water, using her wand, and instructed Draco not to go anywhere while she located the pepper-up potion. She only had one vial in her medicine cabinet, and it wasn't recent so it'd be pretty weak, but it would have to do.

As she descended the stairs back to the common room she saw Draco draining the glass. "All of it?"

He gave her a subtle nod, which she realized was the best she'd get.

 _Merlin, what a world_ , she though as she brought him the pepper-up. _Here I am sobering up Draco Malfoy instead of leaving him somewhere to die_. This gave her pause only for a moment; Draco's presence in the common room, however tenuously sober, was consistent in a way she'd missed in the months after the war—when suddenly she'd been completely on her own, researching how to restore her parents' memories and living apart from Harry and Ron. The Weasleys had offered her a place, but after her awkward talk with Ron that amounted to a breakup, it didn't seem best. Besides, those days everyone was in mourning. It was painful to see the loss on their faces every day—easier to walk around among Muggles who were mostly just worried about the train times and what to cook for dinner.

Hermione took her glass from Draco and handed him the pepper-up. "All one go, you know the drill," she reminded him, and he downed it, coming up spluttering.

"Foul," he said, his voice sounding clearer. He still looked rough, but now that he had more of his wits about him he took out his wand and cast the charms he said he'd learned from his father. He was speaking just like his normal self in no time, even with his weary red-rimmed eyes.

"Well aren't we a pair," he said, smiling thinly. "War Heroine Granger and Death Eater Malfoy, off their meds and drinking themselves into oblivion." He tapped his wand to her glass, which filled with clear liquid, and raised it.

Hermione, who had settled back onto the couch, lunged for the glass.

" _Water_ ," he reassured her, taking a gulp.

She tsk'ed at him. "Still. That's you doing that. Not me."

"Well you still have reason to have respect for yourself."

Hermione frowned at him. "Okay, fine. I do. And you don't. And since you don't, there isn't anyone else who does, either. You know why? Because you aren't trying."

Draco laughed, quite suddenly, and Hermione's look darkened further. "War Heroine Hermione Granger tells—"

"Stop calling me that."

"Why?" Draco refilled the glass. The liquid was still clear, but Hermione couldn't be sure it was water.

Hot tears rose in Hermione's eyes. "Or don't. I don't care. You hate me, you hate you, go ahead. Just mock it all. All the people who died. What all of us sacrificed. The childhood and normal lives we'll never get back."

"I hate you?" Of all the things to pick out of her statement, that was what Draco latched onto.

He wouldn't even look at her; he was staring at the damn glass of what was probably vodka or some other clear alcohol. Hermione's voice was icy. "You hate me because you think my blood is dirty."

"I ha _ted_ you because you hung the moon."

Hermione froze. For a moment, as she tried to process his words, she nearly forgot to breathe, waiting for some kind of explanation. Draco regarded her coolly from the overstuffed chair, finally looking up from the glass. Her voice was harsh when she finally spoke. "What does that mean?"

"Hermione Granger," Draco said her name lazily, dragging it out. The sound of his voice, her name minus the "War Heroine" title, was somehow different. It gave her a tiny chill; she tried to ignore it.

Draco took a long draught from the glass and looked away from her again, looking instead at the far wall. "Genius Granger. Gryffindor's Princess. The Golden Girl. You were untouchable. You did everything well. You were already so high above the rest of us all we could do was try to cut you down."

"I thought the point was I was too _low_." She remembered the filthy names Draco had called her, the physical and mental pain she'd suffered on his account.

"The point was you were supposed to be. And you weren't. And everything we'd ever been taught about—"

Hermione stiffened at the sound of the "m," the "u" that followed, then felt a surprise release in her chest when the word that came out wasn't what she expected.

"—Muggle-borns was turned on its head. My parents expected me to come home and parrot it back, and there you were. Hermione Bloody Granger."

Hermione was rapt, watching him speak, watching his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed, lifting the glass to his lips again when it seemed his throat had run dry. He turned to look at her again, his expression nearly neutral. She didn't know how to respond. It felt like her heart was going to beat out of her chest, like her face was on fire, and nothing about that made sense. "So you hate me because you're jealous." She tried to say it with conviction, with the anger she knew she was supposed to feel, but instead she just felt as if she was hanging on his every word. Something about the way he kept saying her first name.

The tiniest half-movement of the corner of Draco's mouth indicated something like a smile. "Ha- _ted_ ," he pronounced carefully. "And not just."

Draco drained the glass. Then he stood from the chair and walked around the low table toward where Hermione was seated on the couch. She didn't stand—she was frozen, expectant, still holding her breath. He held the glass out to her, his face still that neutral mask, and she closed her fingers around it, accidentally brushing against one of his fingers in the exchange.

He nodded to her in thanks, turned to go back upstairs. The next thing she knew she was standing, glass still in hand, calling out to him—"Draco!"

He paused, only slightly peering over his shoulder.

"Have you been sleeping? At all?"


	4. Chapter 4

It was perhaps a ridiculous solution in the first place, Hermione thought in retrospect. But even as they puzzled over how to fit _two_ mattresses on the floor of their prefects' common room, it had now created an even more ridiculous problem.

Levitating her bed out of her room and down the stairs hadn't been a problem, but for a minor (literal) hangup on one of the banisters. Moving the living room furniture out of the way hadn't been a problem, either—same charms, work divided evenly between them, table stacked on the couch; if anything, the hardest part had been fitting the couch square between the two spiral staircases and shoving the two large armchairs aside. The odd shape of the room—not square, not circular, but some hybrid, with a lip up to the door—didn't make a good environment for furniture Tetris in the first place. But now that they'd shoved everything up against the walls and Draco levitated his bed just over the bannister, Hermione's _reducio_ wasn't shrinking the furniture out of the way as expected.

"Should we switch roles?" Draco drawled.

Hermione glared at him, tried the spell again, and then threw up her hands. "Oh, how could I be so _stupid_?"

"What?"

"The furniture in students' dormitories is charmed so as to reject shrinking or engorgement spells—to prevent theft and pranks. I read about it in _Hogwarts: A History_ , but somehow I'd forgotten. It's not working because it's not goingto work."

"Well then. I don't suppose we need this," Draco gestured at his mattress with his non-wand hand. He walked it back up the stairs while Hermione surveyed their new situation. The problem—not that she'd considered it one until now—was that the prefects' beds were something like the Muggle "queen" size, quite large, and that the comfortable furnishings of their common room were also quite large. Their bedrooms were bigger than the common room, too, so Hermione's mattress had never looked so giant as it did splayed now on the floor, her sheets and blankets all in a bunch after slipping half-off during the levitation.

She kept remembering the night Draco had woken her up from an accidental sleep, how she'd been shaking, how he'd stayed there with her. And she'd just thought—with someone else there, maybe sleep wouldn't be as scary. With someone else who'd been scared and threatened and close to death, maybe she wouldn't feel as ashamed for how hard it was to hold herself together. Their all-nighters in their common room brought her more peace of mind than she'd ever thought they would. She'd even started attending the meetings with the other students—to her great relief, they weren't meetings at all, so much as they were social events. Games of wizarding chess, intramural Quidditch, study hall—they took several different forms, and they weren't all that bad. But even though she'd dropped hints that Draco might enjoy them, he'd never shown up—she had confirmation from Luna, who attended regularly.

"I'll be sleeping on the couch, then," Draco announced as he descended the stairs.

Hermione frowned. "That's where we put the table."

"We'll levitate it somewhere else."

"But that won't do. The couch is bad for sleeping."

"I'm bad _at_ sleeping, so it won't matter."

"Except that that's the point—that both of us need to sleep."

"Then what do you suggest?" Draco stood at the foot of the stairs, his arms crossed; Hermione stood at the foot of her stairs, lips pursed. Draco didn't seem nearly as agitated about this as she did, but as it had been her solution—her madcap, stupid solution—she hated to see it falling apart.

"What if," Hermione said gently, "just for one evening, you took the potions—"

"I don't have them," Draco interrupted. "I dispose of them as soon as I pick them up. Wasn't myself. Everything felt dull, but not in a calming way. It made me—apathetic, at best." He tapped his foot nervously for a moment, fidgeting.

"No, I—I know," Hermione said quickly, stepping down from the staircase and picking her way between a chair and the couch to the bed. "So there's only this—we share the bed." She willed heat not to rise in her cheeks.

Draco lifted an eyebrow, his expression still mostly neutral, and regarded her quietly for a moment. Then he descended the steps and came to stand at the other side of the bed. Hermione crawled under the covers.

"Of course nothing funny," she instructed.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Draco replied, dropping one knee onto the mattress and reaching for her blankets.

"One pillow enough?"

"One pillow is plenty."

"I'll cast the charm—"

"No offense," Draco reached for her wand hand. "But mine are better. War necessity." He gave her a grim smile before casting a silencing charm on the room, so that no one would hear if they woke up screaming in the middle of the night.

"It's the same for you, isn't it?" Hermione asked, her head now on the pillow, covers pulled up to her chin. "The memories you don't want to relive? Waking up screaming?"

"All that and more," Draco replied, placing his wand on the floor beside the bed and folding the covers down to his liking.

"Is it better to wake you, or—?"

"Never had someone there with me. Couldn't say." Draco had his back to her already, settling into the bed.

Hermione put out the lamps with her wand, one by one, until the common room was dark.

"Hermione Granger, asking me to sleep with her," Draco said suddenly, a smirk in his voice, that infuriating tone of his back.

"Oh shut up."

"We'll be the talk of Hogwarts—"

"You're an arse."

"What would the Weasel say—?"

Hermione's exasperated tone turned a bit prickly. "And what does he have to do with this?"

"I'm only saying, if the great Hermione Granger is caught double-timing—"

"Point _A_ ," Hermione shouted over him, "You're being infuriating and—"

"I can see it splashed across all the papers, Rita Skeeter's byline: 'TROUBLE IN PARADISE? SORDID LOVE TRIANGLE'—"

"Point _B_ , it hardly matters seeing as we're not together anymore—" Hermione paused, a bit abruptly, to find that Draco had stopped talking. He lay completely still.

"What?" Hermione hissed at him, annoyed.

"Sleep, Granger," he replied, his tone back to neutral—calming, even. A gentle request.

Hermione felt calmed—calmer than usual, all the usual exhaustion she felt when settling into bed soothed by the presence of someone beside her. Even if that someone was Draco. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and in moments—without even knowing—went to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

It was Sunday morning, and thank Merlin, because there was no telling what time it was.

The night hadn't been without incident. She'd woken herself up once by calling out in her sleep, and the noise had roused Draco as well, who had stumbled backwards off the mattress and into the furniture in his disorientation. Hermione had clutched at the covers, panting, and Draco had lit the end of his wand with a silent _lumos_ , revealing for just a moment the haunted expressions on both of their faces.

Quietly, Hermione had apologized. Draco had extinguished the light. They'd crawled back under the covers. As she tried to replace her terror with Patronus-quality happy memories, she felt—for just a moment—Draco's hand brush across hers. She figured it was a mistake, that he was just shifting in the bed, but she'd been glad for it in a way she refused to analyze.

He was still asleep beside her, a few strands of hair falling into his face. She wondered if he had ever been seen like this in the Slytherin common room, back before the war. If he'd ever lounged with other students in his pajamas. She kept replaying the strange scene from the night before, how it got stranger and stranger. How he'd insisted he didn't hate her now, how he'd told her she _hung the moon_.

Draco started to move and Hermione shut her eyes immediately, afraid that he'd catch her looking. The mattress dipped; the blankets were pulled back momentarily and then replaced. She waited for him to climb the stairs or leave through the portrait-hole. But first she felt a light touch on her head—his hand smoothing against her hair.

His feet found the wooden steps to his bedroom, but it wasn't until Hermione heard the door to his room creak that she allowed herself to breathe again.

 **.**

After dinner Hermione went back to her room. She'd put the bed back first thing in the morning, righted the furniture; she wasn't sure where Draco had gotten to but she wasn't going to bother him. She hoped he'd actually slept, but either way it was good he'd tried.

She'd gotten an owl from Harry, saying he and Ron missed her and that maybe they could meet in Hogsmeade some weekend. He'd made a joke about sharing a space with Draco—whom he still called Malfoy—and Hermione had closed the letter without a reply, telling the owl she'd send something along later. Ron was trying to be friends again, and Harry was probably facilitating.

Hermione put the letter on a stack of other papers, tired of reading it. She sat on the edge of her bed and waved her wand idly through the air, creating little non-flammable bursts of light like a Muggle sparkler. It wasn't that she missed Ron. Or she did, but not the way she'd expected to. She didn't miss imagining their future together. She didn't miss watching to see if he was picking up on her hints. She didn't miss the mix of adoration and frustration she always teetered between with him—or the ribbing she got for her desire to read and know more. She didn't miss any of that. Instead, she missed when things had been much simpler. When the two of them, plus Harry, had done silly kid things, like having snowball fights or staying up late eating too many sweets from the kitchen in the Burrow. She missed cheering on Gryffindor in Quidditch. She missed _really_ caring when she did something to gain—or lose—House points.

She drew swirls through the air with her wand. Hearts. She remembered when her parents had first given her a sparkler at New Year's, how she'd been afraid of the sparks, how she'd written her name in script for the long-exposure camera—and then backwards, time and time again, wasting sparkler after sparkler, until her father could get the perfect picture.

What she missed was a self, a life, she'd never get back. She was sure she wasn't the only adult in history to wish to be a kid again, though she certainly could have done without Voldemort, without the war. She wished she could wish for things as simple as not having to do her own laundry—something she knew her father hated, something he'd pretended to envy her for as a kid (it was a trick for getting her help on folding).

They weren't sure how to handle this either, her parents. She'd managed to undo most of the damage she'd done, though there were certainly some gaps, some weeks missing. Her parents had lost entire memories of her—forever. It made her wonder that she hadn't tried something like a pensieve, tried to extract everything and put it back—but she hadn't had the time, hadn't had the skill with magic.

This was, perhaps, a fraction of what Neville felt, she thought, discontinuing the sparks. It was getting dark out, getting on into late autumn, and she still hadn't lit any lamps so her bedroom was mostly dark. She lay back on her bed, worrying her fingers gently over the wood of her wand, and breathed deeply.

The pillow smelled heavenly: soapy, with that strong scent of a forest and that little spicy kick. Hermione felt a little jump in her chest as she inhaled the scent and stared hard at the ceiling.

She thinned her breaths, trying to make as little noise as possible as she thought: she couldn't pretend it wasn't there. This was really happening. She turned her head to the side, breathing the scent of the pillow again: _Draco_.

She repeated his name to herself as she breathed, as she tried to relax out of her panic, but the more she told herself his name the more her chest seemed to lighten, or tighten, or some strange combination of both. She deposited her wand on the bedside table, turning on her side to slip one arm under the pillow, clutching at it with the fingers of her other hand. _Draco Draco Draco Draco Draco_. She nuzzled into the pillow as if it was his body, as if it was his chest, as if his arms were tight around her. That was what she wanted.

 _Draco_ was what she wanted.

How fortunate, then, for him to come knocking at her door, that precise moment.

Hermione leapt out of bed, fanning herself so as to cool the blush on her cheeks. After trying for a few moments to pat her hair down and out of the way, she opened her bedroom door.

Draco was wearing an old Quidditch shirt—green, of course—and sweatpants again, plus those wonderfully adorable glasses.

 _Merlin, listen to me_ , Hermione reprimanded herself. _"Adorable"?_

"Hermione," he began, his expression a little softer than even "neutral"—and she must have looked surprised, so he amended, "Er, Granger."

Hermione felt her blush deepen and flipped a switch. She didn't like to feel so out of control. And so she arranged her face into a mask of indifference and put on a formal tone: "Malfoy? Can I help you?"

His facial expression reverted to a sneer. "What's the matter now, Granger? Regretting sharing your bed with a former Death Eater?"

"You always think the worst of me," Hermione frowned back. "When next I saw you I was going to check if you'd slept last night."

"I did," he answered, looking a little less venomous. "You?"

"Better than I have in… a long time."

"Well." There was a long pause. Draco didn't move, didn't gesture, didn't seem to be waiting for anything in particular, except perhaps the end of his sentence. "Good," he finished, awkwardly.

They were standing close enough together that Hermione could smell the evergreen soap on him. "Er, is that all?"

Draco looked somewhere past her into her dark bedroom—not really a particular place, just not at her face. "I would like to be able to sleep again."

Hermione nodded.

They continued to stand there.

"I can move the furniture," Draco offered.

"Oh, I…" Hermione turned and looked at her bed. She bit her lip. None of this made a bit of sense. But somehow when she faced Draco again it came out of her mouth—"I'd be fine if we just stayed up here."

The way Draco's eyebrows shot up wasn't controlled; it was genuine. He was surprised.

"What?" Hermione said defensively. "Last night we had an agreement, and I trust you."

Draco didn't look any less shocked, so Hermione said, "Well, if you'd prefer the common room—"

"No—it's fine," Draco said, his voice suddenly a little hoarse.

"Right then. I'll be ready to turn in soon."


	6. Chapter 6

**There's only one more chapter after this! I'll upload it tomorrow as a Thanksgiving treat. :)**

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For a period of a couple of weeks, Draco and Hermione shared her bed with only minimal incident. Of course one or the other still periodically woke in the night, shouting or thrashing around or otherwise terrified from a dream, but they'd remember their surroundings, have the reassurance of the other body in the bed—who may or may not have woken up and mumbled words of encouragement—and drift back to sleep.

They attended all their classes. Draco dressed like his usual self. Hermione raised her hand in every class again, and she even noticed students smiling at her. She realized how frightening she must have looked before she'd been sleeping regularly—she'd been jumpy and anxious and haggard, not to mention sometimes completely out of it. In all honesty, she hadn't done much better than who she was on her medication, except that she'd imagined she was more in control.

Draco was drinking a little less, now that he was sleeping, too. Hermione didn't see him restocking his liquor or refilling glasses with his wand—if anything, he was back to more of an occasional glass of something expensive-smelling and just pumpkin juice over homework. They took turns buying it, now, sharing it as they completed assignments in their common room. The weather was getting cold enough for regular fires, so the space became quite cozy; and sometimes they'd even share the couch, since it was the closest to the fireplace and therefore warmest.

One night Hermione woke—completely by accident, not out of a nightmare—to see that the space beside her was empty. She could see light coming in under the door from the common room below, and first she assumed that Draco had just gone to the restroom or something; but after some moments of tossing, turning, and waiting for him to come back she moved the blankets off and peered out into the common room.

Draco was sitting up reading, glasses on and hair sleep-mussed.

"What're you doing?" Hermione stifled a yawn as she called down.

Draco looked up to where she stood at the top of the stairs. "Having trouble sleeping, so I thought I'd read."

"You can do that in—" Hermione yawned fully—"my room."

"Needed the light. Didn't want to disturb you."

"It's fine," Hermione called out. "I'll probably sleep through it."

"Thought you might want your bed to yourself for a change."

"I like it with you in it," Hermione said without thinking. Belatedly, she realized this was a dangerous admission, but she was too tired to amend it.

"Then I guess I'll come back," was all Draco said. Back in bed, Hermione lit the dim bedside lamp with a flick of her wand and turned away from the light. Soon she heard the door open, felt the bed move as Draco climbed back in bed beside her, and then drifted back to sleep to the soothing sound of someone turning the pages of a book.

 **.**

There had been entirely too many good days in a row—it was bound to happen sometime.

Hermione woke in a panic in the middle of the night—though "woke" was perhaps the wrong word, since it seemed the elements of her dream had invaded her reality, been transported through time and space to her Hogwarts bedroom. She swore she could feel the searing pain as Bellatrix carved into the old scars of her arm, reopening the hateful letters forever etched onto her skin. Or maybe Hogwarts was all an illusion, maybe this bed wasn't really her bed, maybe she was still somewhere on that floor of Malfoy Manor, hallucinating the best possible future. Maybe she still wasn't safe.

When the person beside her turned and was none other than Draco Malfoy, Hermione lost it. She leapt out of bed, running for the bedroom door in an attempt to escape; Draco reached for her, but she was faster. She thundered down the stairs into the common room, nearly falling flat on her face in the process; when she looked up and saw Draco standing there, she screamed with full force.

"Wait!" Draco was calling out. He waved his wand around—surely that wasn't a good sign—and Hermione screamed again, clutching at the arm with the open wounds. She couldn't leave this room; the door was locked. The doors would all be locked, or otherwise it'd be a trap; and someone had taken her wand.

"Don't come near me!" she shrieked, clutching at the back of the couch, trying to form a plan of escape. There was no way out. _No way out_. Draco was getting closer and closer, despite her warning, moving excruciatingly slow—some new element to this torture. Bellatrix's curses echoed inside her head and she could feel her whole body shaking in fear.

Draco held his wand where she could see it clearly, then discarded it onto the floor. He continued in her direction until he was nearly directly opposite her on the other side of the couch. Hermione watched silently, waiting for him to take another step, and then made a break for it, attempting to lunge past him for her wand.

"No!" she shrieked as she felt herself caught up in his arms. She screamed again and again, strained against the hold he had on her, drowning out whatever he was saying. No amount of fighting back could free her from the way his arms encircled her; he wasn't letting her go.

" _Hermione_ ," he was saying, urgently, and suddenly she heard it—heard his tone, heard the quiet of the room, heard the quiet in her own head. She was in the common room, trying to steal Draco's wand from where he'd tossed it on the floor—in an attempt to show her he meant no harm. She was at Hogwarts. The battle was over. Her arm was scarred, and Bellatrix was dead.

Still locked in the circle of Draco's arms, Hermione caught her breath, slumping against him. The vice-grip loosened and his arms shifted so that he was holding her to his chest, his breathing labored in a way that nearly matched hers. Hermione let Draco hold her a few moments longer, taking in everything about him that was real and concrete and not the scene from her nightmare—his loose, unkempt hair flopping slightly into her face, his evergreen soap-smell, perhaps even a hint of the liquor he'd been drinking before bed. He was warm, his body solid, his arms reassuring.

After some time Draco moved his hands to her shoulders and pulled her off of him, just far enough to examine her face. "Hermione. You're safe now," he said gently, his eyes still wide and worried. She noticed then that his face, like hers, was wet with tears, that his eyes shone with unshed moisture. "Are you alright?"

Hermione considered him for a moment—it was all too much right now. She shook her head "no."

"Let's get you back to sleep," he said gently, turning to lead her upstairs. She followed behind him meekly, reassuring herself with each step that _this_ was reality, not the nightmare she'd just awoken from. In the room Draco had lit her other bedside lamp; he was standing just inside the door and indicated that she should get back into bed.

"I'm afraid," Hermione whispered without moving. "If I fall back asleep I might go back…"

"You're dreaming about—?" Draco wasn't sure how to ask her, but he saw that she was clutching at her arm. He nodded to it, and she gave a quick nod of confirmation.

He took a step toward the door. "I'll stay out of your room, then. That should help y—"

"No, Draco. Please." Hermione clutched at his sleeve. " _Please_ stay with me."

"Won't I just bring the nightmares back?"

Even in this state Hermione could see that he was upset, that he still blamed himself. She remembered again the day he'd pulled her sleeve down on her scar and called it one of the reasons he drank. She remembered how he'd willfully betrayed his aunt, betrayed Voldemort, to get Ron, Harry, and herself out of the Manor alive.

"Please," Hermione said gently, "I feel safe with you here."

"You're sorely mistaken," Draco laughed bitterly, but Hermione wouldn't let go. They climbed back into bed, he extinguished the lamp, and they tried to settle in. Hermione was still shaking, so under the cover of the dark bedroom Draco reached for her hand with his, rubbing his fingers across the backs of her fingers, his thumb across her palm. He moved his fingers slowly, rubbing gently, reassuring her of his presence and care. When her hand closed around his, he took to rubbing over her knuckles with his thumb, over and over, until she fell asleep.


	7. Chapter 7

**Happy Thanksgiving, Americans! Happy Thursday, non-Americans! :) Here's the end.**

 **If you enjoyed this (mess of a) Dramione fic, leave me a note! I wrote a nice little one-shot just yesterday because I couldn't get it out of my head, and I might post it soon if enough people want to read… :)**

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It was always Hermione's bed. She didn't have to answer the door when he knocked now—she'd just call "come in" and he'd join her.

Draco started puzzling through his work with her—Hermione wasn't particularly brilliant at potions, not the way he was, but she still had some interesting ideas for substitutions for ingredients. He never said aloud what his purpose was, but Hermione intuited it easily enough. The old potions he was researching, the conditions with old-fashioned names—he was looking for a potion to help them, to help their generation of young post-traumatic war heroes. She admired him a great deal for it. It seemed her affection for him grew warmer and deeper by the day.

Hermione started coming to the Quidditch pitch with him, sometimes just to enjoy his company and other times to take small, careful flying lessons. Draco found it absurdly hilarious that she was so afraid of flying, but that didn't exactly persuade her against her terror. She'd bring a book more than half the time as an excuse, but they both knew she wasn't just tagging along to get fresh air.

When they flew together Draco always let her stay close to the ground and promised he'd catch her if she fell. Some days when she'd kick off too hard, rising unsteadily and faster than she wanted, she'd think he was about to have to make good on it. Some days she hoped he'd have to, just so she could feel his arms around her. He was strong and more muscular than she'd imagined—she'd seen him pull his shirt off on the way into the locker room.

And at night when Hermione invited Draco in, he'd climb into bed—the side that was now his—comfortably, easily, as if he belonged there. A few nights she'd get into bed before turning the lights out and they'd have low conversations, facing each other from their respective pillows. Always small conversations, just school-related, that ended in agreement that it was time to sleep.

 **.**

Draco had woken Hermione twice already, of course by accident. She'd never seen him like this. Now, lying in the bed next to him as he shook silently, her heart hurt for him.

"Draco," she whispered, acting on instinct, acting without thinking as hard as she normally would have: she moved over to him in the bed, half-covering his body with hers, wrapping one arm across his chest. She held him that way, resting her head against his shoulder, trying to still the shaking.

Draco brought an arm up around her, clutched at her. She squeezed back. Gradually, his breathing slowed and matched up with hers; and together they drifted back to sleep.

Then Hermione was awoken by the sensation of being jostled. She opened her eyes to weak morning light and Draco trying to remove himself from beneath her. "What's wrong?" she asked, loosening her grip so as to accommodate him.

"I—I swear I didn't realize I was…"

Hermione had half-closed her eyes again, and Draco wasn't making sense. "You what?" He was swinging his legs over the side of the bed, standing to leave.

"Hermione, this isn't working."

Now she was awake, her heart leaping to her throat. "What isn't working?"

"This." Draco gestured at the bed, where she lay, as if that explained it. "This—" he moved his hand, searching for a word, "sharing a bed."

"Draco, if I've upset you, I'm very sorry. I—at the time I thought it would help you sleep…" Hermione felt tears rising up in her throat, pricking at the corners of her eyes. This was very much the opposite of the way she'd hoped to wake up.

"Do I have to spell it out for you?"

Draco sounded angry. Hermione jumped at how he'd suddenly raised his voice and looked to him helplessly, clutching at her comforter. She felt sick. She'd never expected to be so drawn to Draco Malfoy, especially after about all he'd put her through; but here she was, stricken by all the different directions she imagined the conversation going next. When he didn't continue, she spoke, barely above a whisper: "Yes, I suppose."

"I can't pretend this is just casual. I can't keep doing this!"

"What do you mean—'casual'…?"

"You remember what I said," Draco accused, running a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. "You hung the moon. You _still hang_ the moon. I can't keep pretending this would work."

Hermione could see the pain on his face. She'd seen it before, but she was only just putting the pieces together. "But—who says we're pretending?"

Draco swiped his hand across his face, slowly. Then he looked up again. "The problem is that this is artificial. Deep down you know it too. Once we leave Hogwarts and get out into the real world you'll find someone less dysfunctional, who makes you actually happy, who—"

"Don't tell me what I will and won't do," Hermione said suddenly, her voice low with anger. "You don't get to decide that. I choose." She climbed out of bed, advancing on him slowly. She wasn't going to play this game, this stupid, agonizing, self-torturing cycle. "I choose who I love," she stepped closer, clenching her fists at her sides.

"You don't love me, Granger," Draco chuckled darkly. "You love not being alone. If I was literally anyone else—"

"Stop it," Hermione hissed.

"—you'd think the exact same thing. Too bad for you it's me in here. Too bad—"

"Stop it!"

"—we're both stuck here and sick in the head. We're sick, Granger. And if we keep doing this—" he gestured between them—"it's only going to make us both worse."

"The hell it is!" Hermione grabbed at his shirt.

Draco looked down his nose at her, again wearing the mask of his familiar sneer, but he didn't try to pull away. They faced off, Hermione panting slightly to expel the angry energy that was building up inside of her.

Draco still smelled like evergreen and soap. And although he wore an expression of anger, of danger, this close to him Hermione could see that his eyes were bright with unshed tears. She loosened her grip on his shirt, just slightly, and leaned her face up towards his. When she spoke, it was barely a whisper: "You know I want you here. You know I keep asking you to stay. I—I've fallen in love with you." Hermione felt her cheeks burning, but she held his gaze, her tone serious. "Only say you don't love me and I'll be done with it. But it's not 'literally anyone else,' Draco—it's you. You and your reading glasses and your potion studies, your flying lessons and bedhead and pumpkin juice runs. You and your teasing and the apples you swipe from the Great Hall and the night we fell asleep with you holding my hand." Hermione found his other hand with her unoccupied hand and twined their fingers. Draco didn't hesitate or resist the touch, and as she hoped against hope she gave him permission: "Only say you don't love me. Only say you don't want this, too."

She released his shirt, smoothing it back against his chest. She looked down to make sure she'd gotten all the wrinkles, and in that brief moment Draco let go of her hand.

Hermione's heart dropped into her stomach. This was it. She'd been wrong, and Draco didn't love her, and—

Draco threaded one arm behind her back and put his other hand under her chin, tilting her face up towards his. The kiss was achingly gentle, almost hesitant, a chaste pressing of lips. When Hermione realized what was happening, moving a hand up into his hair and another to clutch at his back, the kiss changed—hot and needy, desperate. They kissed as if they were starving, as if it was all they could do to survive. At one point Draco tried to move her toward the bed, but she lost her balance and they wrenched apart, steadying each other. Hermione moved in to resume the kiss, but Draco pulled back.

"Dear Hermione," Draco practically sighed, reaching out to tuck some of her hair behind her ear. "I think we have a lot to discuss."

"I'd rather save the talk for later," she said, reaching for his face.

Draco turned and kissed the palm of her hand, chuckling. "Be that as it may, love, it's still practically the middle of the night."

Hermione frowned, indicating the clock on the wall. "It says it's nearly six." But she saw the tiredness in Draco's eyes. She felt rather emotionally exhausted herself.

Draco kissed the tip of her nose. "Let's go back to bed, and talk more at a more decent hour?"

"I love you," Hermione said.

Draco still looked surprised to hear it.

"Sorry, I just—I'm just enjoying getting to say it." She smiled up at him, letting him lead her back to bed.

"I love you," Draco repeated, encircling her with his arms and kissing her softly on the forehead. On that gentle note they climbed back into bed, just as they had been before Draco had awoken. For the first time in a long time, they were truly peaceful. For the first time in a long time, all was well.


End file.
